Writing with Sharon Watson - The Power in Your Hands, 2nd edition - High School Writing Review

Teaching writing is a tricky thing.  The majority of kids are not fans of writing essays, short stories and poetry.  They find it hard to express themselves or just find it boring.  But Writing with Sharon Watson has created programs that helps keep your children interested in writing and makes it easy for you to teach them.  We recently had the opportunity to try out one of their high school level writing programs, The Power in Your Hands - Writing Nonfiction in High School.

Essays, opinion persuasion, and exposition papers are not an easy papers to write.  But they are also necessary to learn as they will be papers a student will be writing throughout college and even throughout their future career choices.  The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition gives students a strong foundation to build these on.

When you order The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition you have a choice of a student workbook ($45.00) and Teacher's Guide ($20.00).  I highly suggest that you do purchase both.   The Teacher's Guide helps to lay out lessons for the parents.  It's been a while since I had to write these types of papers, so I fully appreciated the guidance given.  In the beginning of the Teacher's Guide, it gives parent's pointers and guidelines in how to grade your student's work.  They also give plenty of suggestions on how to help your student proofread their own paper's before turning them in for you.

Can't remember proper format for assignments for high school and college?  Well The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition has that covered for you also.  There is an example, and it has changed a bit since I was in high school.  This can really help your student's get ready for college assignments.  My college paper requirements were a bit different, but by learning to follow the format early on, it helps student's when they finally hit college.

The Teacher's Guide also gives lots of suggestions for parents with reluctant writers.  It was like reading my own biography as I was going through this section.  They provide suggestions to help all different learning types.

Included in the Teacher's Guide are also Power Surges for the year.  A Power Surge is a writing prompt that your student can write about without pressure.  During the week they write daily on a different topic, and then on Friday, they pick one of the prompts to complete and proofread to turn into you.  You do not need to use these, but they are provided to help your student get even more out of The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition program.

Of course the Teacher's Guide includes the workbook answers so that you can check your student's workbook quickly.  I normally do not purchase Teacher's Guide books for many subjects.  But this is one that I highly recommend that you purchase, and price is definitely affordable to add it into your purchase.

The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition Student workbook is well laid out and easy for a student to use independently.  This consumable workbook allows students to really look at their writing and even provides them with checklists to make sure they can learn that independence in their writing that they will need in their adult lives.  It also helps them to learn how to schedule their time to help them get their assignments done in a timely manner.  It teaches them to break down the steps in writing each type of essay they will be completing.

All type of non-fiction writing is taught in a way that encourages humor with the student, and yet they are learning proper grammar, punctuation and proofreading.  Student's will learn how to write biographies, letters & emails, persuasive papers and many more.  There is also a chapter/lesson on plagiarism, paraphrasing and citing sources.

There are over 100 daily lessons for students, and the opportunity to dig into 21 different essays to help fine-tune your student's writing.  You can use The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition self-paced and work at your student's speed and your schooling schedule.  If you are prepping your student for real life and of course college, The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition is definitely a program that you will benefit from.

We are approaching this very slow going with Joey.  He has struggled with writing so much.  I appreciate that we can go at our own pace.  He doesn't need to finish this writing in a set time frame, so we have the luxury of moving more slowly to prevent frustration.  I like that he is able to read through the textbook and do his assignments on his laptop.  He has been enjoying the little bits of humor that are scattered throughout the lessons.  I am glad that we have found a writing program that will help him in the future.  The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition is going to give him a foundation that he needs for researching material and writing as he grows.

You can view samples of this program by visiting the Writing with Sharon Watson, The Power in Your Hands - Writing Nonfiction in High School page.

Several members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew were given the opportunity to try out The Power in Your Hands - Writing Non-fiction in High School, 2nd edition and another high school level course 21 Grading Grids for Popular High School Essays and a Position Paper.  See how they enjoyed using these programs in their homes by visiting the Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog.